


I will call you home

by Ullrgodofskiing



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:46:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23020207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ullrgodofskiing/pseuds/Ullrgodofskiing
Summary: A story about what happened when Inquisitor Trevelyan joined the Circle in Ostwick.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan
Kudos: 3





	I will call you home

Leaning against the battlements on one of the more quiet corners of Skyhold's wall, Sonja Trevelyan was absentmindedly watching the mountains and occasional low hanging clouds catching against them. 

It was so early that only the slightest hint of light indicated the sun was slowly creeping toward the horizon. Lady Trevelyan was not looking like her tidy self. Her long dark brown curls were not in their usual tight braid that stopped just above her knees. It was open and the mountain breeze was throwing it around carelessly. 

"Sonja? Love what are you doing here." Came a voice from behind her. She did not need to turn, for she could recognise that voice if she was wandering around in the fade. Though she'd rather not go back there ever. A soft hand touched her shoulder gently, it was Cullen. Similar to her, not wearing his usual armor, only a simple tunic and his furs draped across his shoulders. 

He leaned back toward the wall against the battlements, facing her. "Love, I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Her hand came up to his face, cupping it gently. Her thumb stroking his cheek gently, feeling his stubble against her palm. "Oh. No, you did not. I just realized you were gone, I was worried it was the Achor again." He looked tired, deep shadows under his eyes, in the dim light his amber eyes looked black. "It's not." She dropped her hand and turned her face away from him. She didn't know if she wanted to put this weight on him, which had been why she'd gone out. 

He carefully slid his warm hand around the nape of her neck, gently rubbing it. "I know something is up. Can you not tell me?" The tone of his voice was so careful, sympathetic. "I- I don't want to throw these feelings at you, you don't even know about it and I-" she wasn't making sense and she knew that. 

Tears threatened to start rising in her eyes. Without turning toward him, she reached a hand backward toward Cullen and just as she'd hope he threaded his fingers through hers. 

She closed her eyes and she could feel hot tears falling down her cheeks as she started singing:  
"Elgara vallas, da'len  
Melava somniar  
Mala taren aravas  
Ara ma'desen melar

Iras ma ghilas, da'len  
Ara ma ne'dan ashir  
Dirthara lothlenan'as  
Bal emma mala dir

Tel'enfenim, da'len  
Irassal ma ghilas  
Ma garas mir renan  
Ara ma'athlan vhenas  
Ara ma'athlan vhenas"

Cullen who had moved close, slinging his other arm around waist supporting her. She felt like he kept her voice from shaking. When she'd stopped singing, she sighed deeply. "It's a lullaby."  
His face was very close when he spoke "Is it Dalish?" She nodded "Today-" she could feel her voice shake "Today is my younger Sister's birthday." She shut her eyes tight and leaned into Cullen, who didn't hesitate to pull her into a embrace. "If you do not wish to talk about it, I shan't pry. But if you do, I'm willing to listen. I want to share this burden. It's clearly weighing on you." He kissed her temple and rubbed the small of her back. 

Sonja took a deep breath "I've never told you about when I came to the Circle." Cullen had feared this, Sonja had told him about some things about life in the Circle, none of it had been particularly nice, but this, couldn't be good. 

"I have told you before, that I have a lot of siblings." Cullen remembered, they'd bonded over the chaos many siblings brought with them, he nodded. "I'm a bastard, well, my father isn't a Trevelyan, he married inn, so I'm a true Trevelyan, but yes my father was a Dalish elf. Mine and my younger sister. My father taught me that lullaby, I used to sing it to her a lot." 

Sonja saw the first few rays of the sun making their way over the mountains, she leaned back and slid to the floor, Cullen followed and pulled her close. "The Trevelyans aren't a particularly emotional bunch, my father didn't care. All they care about if you aren't to be head of family is you become a templar or a cleric. If you're a mage, we're not gonna treat you differently if we're templars." Cullen thought about Mia's letters and concern over his well being, Sonja had never gotten any letters from her parents or siblings. "Oh, Love, that's horrible." She looked at him very honestly, tears glittering as they fell from her cheeks in fat drops. He could feel tears burning in the back of his eyes himself. 

"Atia, my little sister didn't get along with anyone but me, my father had left, our very chantry-centric household wasn't particularly welcoming to him. My sister didn't even remember him. She also didn't want to become a Templar, she was a gifted warrior from an early age." Cullen nodded, when he was young all he wanted, was become a Templar, but now all of that childhood innocence was gone. He wasn't sure he regretted it all exactly, he probably wouldn't have met Sonja and he didn't want to imagine that. "Was it because she knew you were a mage?" 

She knotted her hands together until her knuckles went white, "My magic manifested when I was 11 and Atia was 7. We had snuck out to play in the forest. We stuck our feet into the local lake and- The water froze around my feet. Atia was terrified, that they'd take away. I told her we'd hide it." Cullen lightly touched Sonja's clenched hands and cupped them in his, she could feel herself relax. "Take all the time you need."

"I send letters to my father asking if he knew a keeper that would teach me. Anyone, so we'd be safe and I wouldn't have to leave Atia."  
Cullen closed his eyes, he remembered when he himself took away Bethany Hawke to the Circle, how devastated her sister had been, just home from the Deep Roads. He hated himself for it. During those times he didn't even see mages as people. People like Sonja. The very idea made him feel like he could never do enough good to undo the damage he had wrecked upon others. 

When he opened his eyes, he looked directly into Sonja's eyes. She pulled him toward her, she wrapped her arms around him. "I don't blame you for these feelings, you've changed. And I love the person you are now." She whispered, this made him cry. 

"My father couldn't do much. He managed to get me to meet a mage or two from some random clans, but that was about it. I learned about dreaming and how to hide my magic.I was 15 I thought that was good enough. We'd gotten away with it for that long." "That does not bode well." She nodded "Atia wanted us to run away, to wherever, Ferelden or something, become merchants keep my powers hidden. Keep her from becoming a Templar. I'd gone along with it. I wanted it just as much as her, though I knew it couldn't work. We were 17 and 13, not refugee material either. Two of my older siblings started bullying Atia. Every time I was around. She cried so much in my lap, it was heartbreaking." 

"Picking on the youngest. " Cullen muttered disapprovingly, Sonja went on, she couldn't stop now or she would not make it through. "When I turned 18, they wanted to send me to the Chantry, I had resisted this long, because of Atia, but my oldest Sister who'd always defended me had left for the Chantry in Starkhaven and they'd already set up a templar spot for Atia. She was just 14- I became desperate. I was so scared and angry. I lost control. I set the curtains on fire, by total accident." Cullen was listening and he tried to look and feel supportive, for here, he knew came the worst of it. "Atia grabbed me and ran out with me, into the woods. She was crying, crying again, this time my fault and now! Now the templars would come after me. Atia begged me, we should try flee, to our father, or something. I told her it wouldn't work. Our family had probably already contacted the templars. I apologized to her. I told her I loved her. I would write her." She stopped and remembered that feeling of hopelessness for yourself, but trying to inspire hope in someone else. "I'm sorry that can't have been easy." "Whatever we could have done, it wouldn't have worked, well we didn't even have time. They'd set all the templar of the Circle on me. Surrounded the forest. They found us within hours. Tied me up and locked Atia up at the family estate." 

"They took me to the Circle, I was locked up for weeks, I tried to send Atia letters, but they wouldn't let me. For over a month I sat in a room, waiting to hear from her, anything. One of my brothers was a Templar at the Circle, to him I was the same as any mage, a charge, not even human." Cullen leaned his head into hers he couldn't keep apologising, she'd told him before, but he wished he could change the past. 

"They had made a deal for a chantry somewhere, I don't remember to take Atia, make her work there. They denied her to write to me as punishment for running away. A week before they were sending her she-" Sonja started shaking and sobbing, she was trying to stifle it, but her breaths came out ragged and loud. Cullen kneeled in front of her, enveloping her in his arms, she cried into the fur on his shoulders. He knew the story had no good end, but it still felt raw and painful hearing it from Sonja. "She took her own life, when they told her she'd never see me again." 

Cullen held her like this for a very long time, he was crying too, whispering apologies. "When I was in the order, for the longest time, I did not question anything. After what happened during the blight I thought all mages were going to do what they did there. After what happened at Kirkwall, I couldn't imagine how I could ever make good again what I did, I didn't even think they were people, you were people. There's nothing I can say to make this better, other then I understand why Atia loved you so much, and I wish I could've known her." 

Sonja looked up "It's funny really, not at all funny. That my mother sent me a letter telling me this and telling me it was my fault and that I was no longer her daughter."

"Do you not have any contact with any of your family?" "Actually I did, before the breach- My sister Lorane, the one that served at Starkhaven, she stopped being a sister at the Chantry and became a merchant, Josephine's family often works with her. I haven't talked to her for so long."

Abruptly Sonja stood up. "Would you come with me on some travels today, my love?" "Of course." He took her hand and let her pull him up. 

Without changing or braiding her hair they took some horses and rode out.

After a few hours, the day had well and truly began and they stood amongst a sea of flowers and plants, little river streams. Picking flowers. When it was noon they sat down under a large old oak tree and laid the flowers to its roots. With a dagger, Sonja carved words into the tree.  
Elgara vallas, da'len  
Atia, my sister brave, so full of love.  
Together they hummed the old melody  
The next day there was one letter sent to Lorane Trevelyan and one to Mia Rutherford.


End file.
